Prayer before birth is a poem written by the Irish poetLouis McNeice (1907 - 1963) at the height of the Second World War. In the poem, Louis MacNeice expresses his fear at what the world's tyranny can do to the innocence of a child and blames the human race "for the sins that in me the world shall commit". The poem also contains many religious themes and overtones through the use of double-imagery; the child could be seen as a metaphor for Christ, making reference to certain themes and events said to have occurred during his ministry on earth.
There is great use of alliteration and assonance: "strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me" to create rhythm in the poem. Also repetition of "I am not yet born" is used to emphasise innocence. MacNeice also talks of being a "cog in a machine" - this shows that he feels that society will mould the child to become part of everything else around him, he will be worthless, insignificant and merely a part of an entire collaboration. This also links in with the First and Second World Wars, where soldiers were "dragooned" into being an "automaton".

This is an excerpt from the article Prayer before birth from the Wikipedia free encyclopedia. A list of authors is available at Wikipedia.

The article Prayer before birth at en.wikipedia.org was accessed 536 times in the last 30 days. (as of: 07/10/2013)

Prayer. Before. Birth. LOUIS MACNEICE I am not yet born; O hear me. Let not the
bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me. I
am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall ...

Prayer before birth Coming now to the process of maternal/analytic reverie in the
consulting room, I am going to describe a fragment of my work with Jane. We had
become aware that, possibly at birth, Jane had protectively withdrawn an ...

Prayer before birth Q Techniques The poem uses an amazing variety of
techniques. by Louis MacNeice This poem ... and fears before it is born. The
structure of the text allows the writer to create something that sounds like a charm
or prayer.

PRAYER. BEFORE. BIRTH. I cannot pray for myself. Only just can I bear to ask for
words which are not for me but for the grinders and yellow tusks of this creature to
crack, crush, and make paste; I don't know what he is, but the tracks where he ...

'Prayer before birth' ( I 444) 14 Let them not make me a stone and let them not
spill me, Otherwise kill me. 'Prayer before birth' 1 1944) 15 Down the road
someone is practising scales, The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails
, Man's ...

A great verse form does not need superb school text; it needs superb use of poetic techniques and a grave structure. Prayer before birth is a fine example of a good poem; however, the text is superb too.

Here I reproduce a marvellous poem by Louis
MacNeice, a great under-estimated and under-read poet having lingered under the
shadow of Eliot and more under W. H Auden, getting ritually clubbed with Stephen Spender and C.

MacNeice writes from the point of view of an unborn child, asking to already be forgiven for the sins he is sure to commit because of the nature of humanity. The child knows that he will inevitably conform to their way of life, and the evils that he too will commit in his life as he will be made into a "cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing".